1. Technical Field
The present disclosure generally relates to electronic circuits and, more specifically, to electronic circuits and architectures integrating a near-field communication (NFC) interface.
2. Description of the Related Art
More and more mobile telecommunication devices are equipped with near-field communication interfaces, generally called NFC routers. An NFC router provides the device with additional functions. An NFC router can operate either in card mode, the device then having the functions of a contactless communication card, or in reader mode, the device then having the functions of a contactless card reader and/or write terminal.
In card mode, the device is capable of operating by being powered by the field radiated by a terminal with which it communicates and without using the power of the device battery. In such a mode, the contactless communication interface however does not have access to all the circuits equipping the device containing it since this would generate too high a current consumption.
Such a problem is not posed in reader mode where the device uses its battery to emit a high-frequency field capable of being detected by another device operating in card mode. In such a configuration, all the circuits of the mobile device are available for the NFC router.
The NFC router of course has memory circuits, among which reprogrammable non-volatile memory elements enable the device to keep, among others, its configuration data. Since the NFC router generally does not have access to the device memories when it is in card mode, which would generate too high a current consumption, most NFC routers integrate their own non-volatile memory elements.
Contactless communication interfaces integrated with other communication circuits start appearing. Such multiple-function or multiple-connectivity circuits are generally called “combo” circuits. The aim is to integrate, in a same chip, the contactless communication functions (NFC) and other communication functions such as, for example, Bluetooth, IEEE 802.11 Wifi, etc. Now, such combo circuits generally use analog technologies which do not provide the integration of non-volatile memories. Conventionally, a combo circuit of this type uses a generic external non-volatile memory belonging to the device.